1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a method of tying two or more components together by means of a fastener.
Such a method can be used for the manufacture of a number of products; hereafter, examples will be described, and that are intend to in no way be restrictive with respect to the invention, as to how the method can be applied in order to tie a number of components together in a way that those components form a cohesive and self-supporting construction with a view toward joining the components together in an additional way, for example by soldering, at a subsequent stage of manufacture.
2. Background
In the aircraft industry, for example, there is a need to join various components, such as plates or panels, together by soldering and other appropriate tying methods, for the manufacture of various articles (constructions). In order to facilitate the soldering of a number of plates, the components must be fixed in relation to one another during the soldering phase. A fixture, or a so-called soldering jig, can be used for this purpose. If the construction comprises (includes, but is not limited to) a large number of components, however, or if the construction has a complex geometry, great demands will be placed on the design of the soldering jig. In addition to the fact that the complexity of the soldering jig leads to high production costs, it will also often be difficult to handle at the soldering stage.
One way of dispensing with the use of a soldering jig is to instead preassemble the plates or components into a self-supporting construction prior to soldering. Such preassembly can be achieved by welding or riveting the components together. When using brittle materials, however, such as intermetallic alloys, for example TiAl, NiAl and FeAl, conventional soldering, welding and riveting can have an adverse effect on the material and on the characteristics of the finished product, due to the occurrence of cracking.
For TIG and EB welding of intermetallic alloys, a complicated preheating and/or postheating of parts of the construction, or the entire construction are required in order to avoid cracking and/or expansion in the weld seam or the parent material as a result of large temperature gradients. Both the process and the equipment needed to carry out such heat treatments are expensive.
Conventional hot-riveting can also lead to large temperature gradients in the construction that results in cracking. Furthermore, riveting with rivets made of conventional material, such as IN600 or the like, can lead to thermal fatigue cracking due to large differences in the coefficient of thermal expansion between the material in the rivet and the material in the components made from intermetallic compounds that are to be riveted together. At higher temperatures, differences in the thermal expansion of the materials will have an effect on the force with which the rivet holds the components together. If the rivet has a higher coefficient of thermal expansion than the components that are held together by the rivet, at higher temperature, the force with which the components are held together will be reduced. In addition, alloys of different composition in rivets and plates lead to the formation of undesirable brittle phases in the material closest to the rivet hole during subsequent soldering of the components, for example.